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November 02, 2012

The Key to Clean Water: Trees and Streams

Over the last 15 years, our restoration program has assisted more than 5,000 landowners in Pennsylvania in reducing water
pollution and improving stream health by planting forested buffers. A few weeks ago, our Facebook fans
asked CBF's Watershed Restoration Manager David Wise questions about the Pennsylvania restoration program and the benefits of
planting trees along streams. See what he had to say below...

Facebook fan Timothy Shultz
asked: Are
there any plans for more stream restoration projects in Lancaster, Pennsylvania? We seem
to only have two or three plantings a year. With hundreds of miles of streams, it seems
we could have a few more plantings a year, given the funding and volunteers.

David Wise: Tim, thanks for your question. There’s a bit of history here. In the past, we were a pretty small operation
and the level of restoration we were doing made it very hard to do volunteer
plantings (which are enormously energy intensive) and take care of our
wholesale restoration program. The good news is that we now have some
additional staff and with the additional manpower we have, I think we are much
better positioned to make sure that there are plenty of opportunities for
volunteers while still working on restoration at the wholesale level. I think you can expect good things, and we are
far better positioned than we were 10 years ago.

D.W.: I’m going to have to pivot on this
one. The real connection between trees
and nutrients in streams is that nutrients are usually a pollutant in most
local waterways. They are good in small amounts—they are necessary. But in
large amounts they are the primary pollutants in local waterways and the
Chesapeake Bay. So, nutrients—too many is bad. The connection between trees
and streams—by placing trees along streams, those trees are foundational to
creating an environment in the stream that allows organisms in the stream to
prosper and thrive. The things that live in the stream will actually remove a
lot of the nitrogen and phosphorus and help tie up those nutrients so they
don't move down the system.

The real
nugget here is that by giving stream organisms the [right] temperatures,
the type of food, and quantity of food that really make them thrive, those
organisms are in a great position to do an awful lot of water quality work by
removing excess nutrients from the stream system. A stream that has trees on its banks can
remove two to nine times more nitrogen from the stream than a stream without trees on
its banks.

Facebook fan Amanda Elizabeth asked a second question:What are some indicators of poor stream
health that occur after the destruction of a forrested buffer?

D.W.: The first
indicator and predictor is whether there are trees along the stream. Trees have
such an enormous role in the basic ecology of Pennsylvania streams. The presence of trees would be a primary
indication that a stream is heading in the right direction. Some of the
indicators that you would see in the water itself; if you are seeing a lot of
stringy algae that would be an indicator of excess nutrients and light levels
in the stream. Most Pennsylvania streams are adapted to living under the shade
of trees. The whole ecosystem is really set up to thrive best under those shady
conditions.